The Right Hand of God (46 page)

Surely he knew? Surely he had been able to work it out? But deep in his heart Phemanderac knew that his stubborn northern friend would not have given it a moment's thought. Hurriedly the tall philosopher shrugged off his

harp, placed it gently on the flat top of the boulder, then leaped to the ground.

The crash of the armies coming together shook Farr to the very core. He stood in the front line with the Fodhram, a place of honour given him by his laughing friends. They positioned themselves right in the path of the Bhrudwans clambering down the steepest part of the stone-slope. The advancing warriors, all of whom wore a red sash or bib, carried both sword and spear in addition to their shield; and just before they reached the Falthan lines they cast their spears down on the opposing army. But the Fodhram were ready for them. They knocked the spears away with their long-handled axes, then darted forward and began hewing at the arms and legs of their adversaries. Farr took his sword and, uttering a yell that would have turned every head in the Waybridge Inn back home, threw himself into the fray.

Immediately he was confronted by a squat man jabbing a curved sword in front of him as though poling a boat away from the shore. Farr fell back a step, drawing his man forward, then hacked at the sword hand, crushing his fingers against the hilt. As the man struggled to retrieve his blade, Farr struck at his unprotected neck. With a groan the Bhrudwan fell to the ground bonelessly, where he lay bleeding.

A great relief blossomed within the mountain man's chest. He had been afraid, he admitted to himself, deathly afraid he would find his courage lacking in the battle's fevered heart; afraid his skill would be found wanting; that at the crucial moment he would find himself unable to deliver the killing blow. Exhilarated, he cried out: 'Vinkullen! For Vinkullen and Wira Storrsen!' A few of the Fodhram rushed over to the fey foreigner, picked up his cry and began to lay

about themselves in wide strokes, felling men wherever they swung, laughing and shouting all the while.

In the heart of the battle, Farr had come home.

Leith stood alone in the midst of a brown field, facing the oncoming Bhrudwans. His horse lay dead behind him, victim of a stray arrow from somewhere in the Falthan ranks. Sword in his shaking hand, he readied himself to strike and to die. He knew himself no swordsman.

Everything had depended on the cruel, faithless Arrow. 'Why didn't you tell me!' he shouted at the useless object in his hand, but it did not reply.

Everything moved with a terrible sluggishness, as though mired in mud. On came the Bhrudwans, dozens of them, swords raised, spears out, cautious but no longer afraid. A strange silence descended, the noises of battle merging into a kind of background murmur, like a flock of crows in a distant forest. The world narrowed to a few paces.

With a cry a handful of Falthan soldiers burst past him and threw themselves at the Bhrudwans. The ringing of blade on blade echoed in Leith's ears and across the field. One snarling Falthan fell, three Bhrudwans on him, stabbing, thrusting, hacking long after there was no need, making sure of the kill. The other four Falthans formed a circle around Leith, blades out, deflecting the Bhrudwan charge, defending, playing for time. One man grunted as a spear laid open his sword arm.

These people are dying for me! If you ever want me to listen to you again, speak now!

'Don't waste time thinking about what the Arrow can't do,' came the calm voice. 'Think about what it can do.'

Is that all! You owe me more than that! Another of his men was down, a spear in his side, death approaching, but still

the man called out warnings to his fellows. Such courage! For a moment he considered letting the Arrow flame out -maybe I could melt their swords and spears - but his own men would burn as they tried to protect him.

'Get back! Get back!' he cried to his men. I can't do anything to hurt the Bhrudwans - not directly, anyway. But they may still think 1 have power. So they might believe their swords and spears are too hot to hold on to. He thrust aside his soldiers, bursting out of their protective ring with a roar. Immediately he let all his anger flow into the Jugom Ark, which went incandescent.

'You may not burn, but your weapons will!' he cried, even as he deflected a sword stroke.

Closer. He pictured in his mind the blades melting, the handles heating - and as he imagined it, so it happened. Illusion.

'Yes. More powerful than reality.' The voice sounded smug. Leith watched the Bhrudwans throw down their weapons in pain, then run from the field.

Leith could not contain himself, 'Look around you!' he shouted at the voice. 'People died to protect me! Why didn't you tell me this before?'

No reply came, unsurprisingly. He could almost hear the voice giving him a Hal-like explanation: I can only work through people. 1 sent my teachers to you, and you rejected every one. I wanted to tell you, but you were not willing to listen. So now people die.

'I don't accept that,' Leith muttered. 'You don't care how many die, as long as you and your precious plan remain safe.'

'We'll see,' said the voice softly, and to Leith's dazed mind it sounded more like a lament than a promise.

As Stella watched, men died. The dun-cloaked Bhrudwans, with their bibs of various colours, rolled right over the

greys and dark greens of the Falthan vanguard. There were few Bhrudwans among the fallen.

To her left, near the base of the steepest part of the talus slope, the Falthans appeared to be doing a little better: the Bhrudwans had come down more carefully, and the defenders fought fiercely, with axes, bows and clubs as well as swords. Their numbers included some with bare chests and dark skins, she noted with surprise. But even they were suffering, mostly from the constant rain of arrows from archers carefully positioned at the top of the slope. Out near the centre of the battlefield the situation appeared far worse. Apart from little clusters of capable fighters, most of the leading Falthans fell within moments of their first engagement. Already the Bhrudwans had forced a wedge extending many paces into the lines of their foe, clambering over the bodies of the fallen in their haste to press home their advantage.

Her eye was taken by a flash of light somewhat to the right of the wedge's apex, standing out in the open. She looked more closely: there it was again. A man. No, a boy. Holding a burning torch.

Leith! With the Jugom Ark in his hand!

He had been seen by others far closer than she. A score of Bhrudwans, led by a man in a jet-black cloak, broke away from the wedge and began forcing their way towards the flashing light. Leith! Watch out! She did not realise she had spoken aloud until the figure beside her laughed.

'Don't worry, girl; unless he is very foolish or very unlucky he will not be killed. My Maghdi Dasht have strict orders to capture the bearer of the Jugom Ark alive. Soon he will stand at my right hand, as closely bound to me as you are.' And he laughed again, a hungry sound that seemed to suck light

from the very sky. Beside his appalling darkness, the light of the Jugom Ark seemed very small and far away.

Jethart rallied his dismayed generals, calling them to his side. 'It is time to go to your own commands,' he said to them in a calm voice. 'Each of us will be most effective taking charge of his own people.' Without remaining to ensure his sugges-tion was being followed, he set spurs to his horse and made for the losian army, where the battle was thickest.

The man from Inch Chanter reached down and pulled his blade from its scabbard. He had not wanted this heirloom back. It reminded him of the evil times when his people and the Widuz fought incessantly, of the death of his elder son, of the disappearance of his only daughter, of the blood on his hands. Of the red harvest of unthinking deeds committed by a callow youth without regard for the ghosts that would come calling when finally he laid his weapon down.

His broad blade and its jewelled scabbard had hung on the wall of the town's meeting house, a sort of shrine for the young men to gather around, but Jethart had not been back to see it in the years since he'd placed it there. Then the northern stranger Mahnum came to town, fleeing the Widuz, and miraculously restored his daughter to him. Mahnum Modahlsen was a name well known to one who watched the affairs of western Faltha from his humble cottage. The son of Modahl claimed the sword of Jethart for his own and escaped the Widuz under cover of night, in pursuit of his son. A son who now carried the Jugom Ark and was widely proclaimed as the fabled Right Hand of the Most High.

Jethart was inextricably bound in the greatest story of the age, a tale greater by far than the border conflicts in which he had fought with courage and renown; and when a messenger from his old friend Kroptur appeared on his doorstep, suggesting he organise an unlikely iosian alliance and lead them eastwards, he could not remain aloof from it. He couldn't help thinking how foolish his ornate scabbard looked slapping against his age-mottled leg. Was 1 crazy to come all this way? Of course he had been. He should be sitting by the fire with his daughter and grandson. Yet his had been die counsel sought by all the great generals of the land, and now his was the responsibility. Someone had to redeem the situation, someone had to devise new tactics to meet those of their enemy. There would be no opportunity to sit in a comfortable tent and debate at their leisure. He would rally the hsian army, then find a way to turn this rout to their advantage.

Leith shook his head in weariness. He had entertained hopes of being a great warrior, striding across the battlefield, putting the enemy to flight. In his dreams the Destroyer burned as he wielded the fire of his Arrow, while his parents looked on. But quickly he discovered how difficult it was merely to stay alive.

He missed his horse. Down here on his own feet death hunted him from every direction.

Spears, arrows, swords, clubs, axes. He couldn't keep the Arrow burning all the time: the protection it offered depended on his own energy, draining him as well as endangering his soldiers. Leith alternated between periods of euphoria, unable to believe he was still alive, and times of pure fear, ducking roundhouse swishes, dodging stabs, operating on instinct. At one point during that hectic first hour he fought side by side with Perdu. During a brief lull he sent Perdu off to look for a horse and a shield; a mistake, as the fighting redoubled around him after the man left.

There were heroes on the field that afternoon, Falthan and

Bhrudwan both. For a while Leith fought alongside a company from Straux, hardened warriors who asked him no questions about his powerless arrow. These men used staff and sword with the grace and efficiency of dancers. 'Left!' one shouted. The company swung left to meet a column of Bhrudwan pikemen, then dealt with them mercilessly. 'Right!' They engaged a troop of big men wielding broadswords, and in moments men from both sides littered the ground. In perhaps ten minutes of savagery they fought themselves to a standstill.

A huge Bhrudwan in an incongruous red bib barked a command, and the Bhrudwans withdrew. Too late for one. A smaller man, also with a red bib, found himself surrounded by Falthan swordsmen. He lurched first this way, then that, but his enemies would not give way.

Spinning on his heels he tried to force a way through, but as he spun his sword was chopped from his hand.

With a wild yell the huge red-bibbed Bhrudwan barrelled into the Falthans, bringing half-a-dozen of them down on top of him. His compatriot dashed through the gap to freedom.

Grunting with exertion, the huge man rose with three men still clinging to him, knives flashing. He made it all the way to his feet before slumping back to the hard earth.

The smaller man, rescued by this valour, shrieked as he saw his commander fall, and ran back into danger.

'Leave him!' Leith cried, realising what had happened. 'Leave the man alone!' Wordlessly the Straux warriors drew back, then turned in search of another battle, leaving the smaller Bhrudwan - a boy, really - to grieve over the body of his father.

And so the afternoon drew on. Leith had glanced up at the wan sun and found it had barely moved from when he'd last checked; then looked again a moment later and found it quartering towards the horizon. The smells and sounds

were dreadful. Mass slaughter. Surely even surrender would be better than this. Even Perdu's return with a replacement horse did little to erase his horror.

An unsettling hum cut across the general noise of fighting, gradually resolving into a sort of low chanting, not quite sung, not quite spoken, a guttural rumbling that set Leith's teeth on edge. There! The strange chanting came from the weaponless man in the grey robe, cowled so his face was hidden, standing less than thirty paces away at the head of a column of Bhrudwan warriors. A raw, debilitating power lay hidden in the words; even though they were spoken in a language Leith did not understand, their intent was clear. Words of defeat, of despair. The words seemed to solidify on his skin, encumbering weights that made his progress seem as slow as swimming in mud.

A few Falthans threw down their weapons in the face of the strange assault: one such bowed his head as a spike-studded mace swung towards him. The crunching contact stove in the man's skull, and he fell to the ground, twitching out his life.

Whatever this is, it has to be stopped!

The Arrow in Leith's hand pulsed in time with the beating of his heart, weak and rapid. Just when it would have been most useful, there seemed no potency in it. Where was the anger he felt when last he was caught up in a battle? To his right a foot soldier went down with a spear through his stomach, collapsing on it, falling on the shaft so it drove through him, then rolling over on to his side in the throes of death. With wide, staring eyes the soldier looked up at the man who had slain him, his face contorted with pain, and lifted an ann in supplication as if calling on his adversary to undo what he had done. The Bhrudwan soldier reached out and took hold of the spear, then twisted it savagely: the resulting scream ended in a gurgle. A boot came down on